Could Israel Abandon Jews to the Arabs' Mercies?"

We know the answer to that question. But does Ehud Barak? Is he serious?

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Giulio Meotti, 28/09/12 13:34

Defense Minister Ehud Barak

AFP/Pool/File

Giulio Meotti

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.

Ignoring Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Hitlerist statement that a Palestinian state would not contain a single Jew, Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak has suggested to leave behind more than 100.000 Jews who currently live outside the main blocs in Judea and Samaria.

Barak energized again the fatal clash between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel.

His loose talk of abandonment of the Jews to a death trap and the mercy of the Arabs is very grave.

Is he imagining hundreds of thousands of Jews surrendered to expulsion or to becoming refugees like "lambs to the slaughter"? What about the legitimacy of the law in a society that treats 10 % of its children as scapegoats and guinea pigs?

Jews will not be allowed to live under the Palestinian Authority. Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was “jüdenrein”, or cleansed of Jews.

The State of Palestine and the Jewish settlements are exclusive. Israel would have to uproot all the Jewish towns in order to pave the way for this new apartheid Arab state which will come into existence upon the ruins of the settlers' homes.

Palestine will be like Saudi Arabia, which doesn’t even permit Jewish visitors, and Jordan, which doesn't permit Jews to be domiciled in the country.Like Iran's Jews, the State of Palestine might allow some Jews to hold residency, just to prove that Islam is tollerant. The Arabs could pick up some from Neturei Karta.

Under Palestinian rule, Jews will be given two options: suitcase or coffin.

It already happened - in Algeria in 1962, when 150,000 Jews were forced to leave the country en masse after the National Liberation Front took power. This is what Israel's enemies want.

In an essay he wrote in 1966, before the Six-Day War, the French- Marxist historian Maxime Rodinson drew analogies between the Jews in Israel and the French settlers in Algeria as well as the whites in South Africa. One day, they will be all gone, he opined.

The Jews under Palestinian Muslim rule will meet the same fate as Serbs under Bosnian rule. What happened to 100.000 Serbs in Sarajevo after Muslim Bosnians took the control of the city? They all left the area, part of an exodus that turned Sarajevo, once multi-ethnic, into an Islamic city.

But there is one solution if Israel relinquishes sovereignty over Jewish areas in the territories. On behalf of the Jewish people, the Jewish Authority could take possession of the settlements abandoned by the state. The Jewish Authority was promoted last year by leading figures in the settlements, rabbis, professors, military officers and activists.

"The Jewish Authority considers such ideas as abandoning Jews to foreign rule in the Land of Israel or continuing to expel them from their land criminal and shocking, demonstrating clearly that the lessons accruing from the Holocaust and from previous withdrawals have not been learned", read the organization's manifesto

Over the entire globe, there is only one area not ruled by some form of sovereignty, it's Judea and Samaria. The abandonment of northern Samaria by the government of Israel was begun.

The Jews should fill the vacuum before it's too late and the nightmare below comes true. Or are they just going to stand aside like lambs to the slaughter?

Creating a highly credible Jewish Authority drastically reduces the likelihood of such a catastrophe of abandonment occurring in the first place. The settlements must have capacity for self-defense, instead being subject to the mercies of the Palestinians.

And they must also protect all of the infrastructure such as water, sewage, electricity, access roads, food supply, transportation to school, health clinics and ambulance services.

Barack Obama may be reelected and he will return to serve the settlers on a silver platter. In 2010, Obama asked Netanyahu to withdraw the army from all the Arab cities of Judea and Samaria, precluding all future Israeli military operations in those areas, which is the only way of preventing terrorist attacks; and hand over parts of Area C to the Palestinian authorities, changing its status to Area A, which prohibits Israelis from setting foot there.

In the meantime, Barak is de facto transferring control over parts of Area C to the Palestinians, endangering Jewish lives as he lets Arabs build on real estate along roads and around Israeli towns.

Mr. Barak,

Can Jews live in a racist state led by Holocaust enablers like Hamas or by a Holocaust-denier like Mahmoud Abbas, who in a book denied that the gas chambers were used to murder Jews?

Can Jews survive in a state that will banish freedom of conscience for artists, journalists and writers?

Can Jews sleep without nightmares in a state that tortures inmates in prisons and that throws political dissidents from the roofs of public buildings?

Can Jews protect their own children in a state where the sharia will be the only rule of law?

Can Jewish motorists be safe in a state where the ratio of militiamen/men- under-arms to civilians will be higher than in any other country?

Can synagogues be protected in a state where even worshipers in mosques are gunned down by terrorists?

Can Jews be safe in a state where ambulances have been stopped on the way to hospitals and wounded shot in cold blood?

Who would live in such a state? For the Jews under Palestinian rule, quoting Thomas Hobbes, life will be "nasty, brutish, and short", especially short.

What Barak suggests is simply mass suicide.

The first sign of the imminent tragedy will be the IDF conducting a large scale operation to confiscate weapons from the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.

The Palestinians can then give the Jews two options: suitcase or coffin.